Running the Virgin London Marathon 2010

And so, after all those months of training race day was finally upon me. I always knew that after picking up an injury so late on in my training build up that I'd lost a significant amount of fitness but I had no idea how far behind I was until I got half way through the this years London marathon. For me the race became a different run altogether, a test of endurance, mental as much as physical far greater than I originally anticipated.

The day began with clouded skies and a heavy downpour, something that came as a welcome surprise to all of us gathering on Blackheath Common after all the predictions of record high temperatures and burning hot sunshine. If the forecasters had been right the weather would have been a marathon runners worst nightmare. But the weather spirits were kind to us, giving us just enough rain to keep it cool without being too damp for the start of the race.

I joined my start group in pen 3 and immediately felt out of place. Looking at the the runners around me I could see they were more toned and more focused than myself. I knew I was way too far forward in the start and I was going to get in the way of the other runners.

I had decided to not try and run an 8 minute mile pace, that would have been stupid, so my plan was to set off and settle as quickly as possible into a comfortable pace closer to 8:20/mile and as the race started I very quickly found a relatively decent pace to go along with. I passed the first mile mark at 8 minutes 24, way over my original 3:30 target pace but close enough to a 3:35 finish to make it up over the second half of the race if I felt capable of doing so. That was my plan, to stay within reach of beating my personal best without setting off too quickly and doing myself in.

I continued, enjoying the support and the occasion, even through those early stages the crowds lining the street are quite vocal and larger that I remembered from my previous race. I kind of forgot about my running for a bit, just drifting along quite happily and I crossed the three mile mark just 40 seconds off the pace, I felt quite comfortable.

As I ran through Charlton I was careful to not get too confident, I passed the 5 mile marker more quickly than I ought to have done reducing my time deficit to only 14 seconds so I decided to ease off over the next mile or so completing the first 10km in an unspectacular but reasonable 52 minutes. I passed the famous Cutty Sark, still boarded up and no more than a pile of scaffolding at the moment, turning into Deptford and heading towards Surrey Quays my pace still a good 40 second off but well within reach. 40 seconds down is not too bad, I had just passed the eight mile marker and I still felt comfortable.

The first sign of trouble came around mile 10. I became aware of a tightness in my right calf muscle, something that originally appeared during my training and my physio suggested was a sign that I was in some way over-compensating for the injury I'd incurred on my left side. I immediately slowed down, even considering stopping to stretch it but deciding against it I carried on, trying to stay relaxed, trying to keep my rhythm going. The tightness in my calf stayed about the same but I was aware that had really slowed down, I was now a good minute and a half off my pace but I knew that it was better to slow down at that stage in the race rather than suffer later on.

The crowds along Jamaica road were amazing much larger that I remembered from my previous London Marathon. All the way from Rotherhithe and Bemondsey to Tower Bridge, every inch of space lining the route was taken. The noise was incredible.

Over Tower bridge I ran, crossing that halfway point at a stately 1 hour 55 minutes. I comforted myself that this was a similar time I crossed the halfway point as I did the last time I ran the London marathon but the ache on my calf muscle grew worse and I knew as I approached the 14th mile that something was very wrong and it wasn't going to get better. Again, I slowed down.

It was like a chain reaction, what started as a dull ache became a sharp pressure in my Achilles. Then I started to develop a pain in my piriformis muscle, everything was starting to feel like it was closing up. It was becoming hard to concentrate on anything other than the growing pain, I was stiffening up, losing my form.

It was about at that point that I passed the water station manned by the children from the school I work in. Just seeing them gave me such a lift, I completely forgot about the pain for a minute or two. There's nothing like seeing people you know by the side of the course, friends, colleagues, family, close ones to give you support. Years after a race like the marathon, when you close your eyes, you can still see the look on their faces the moment when they see you pass by, a look of sheer joy and elation.

Just after I left Narrow Street and tuned right into the underground roundabout as I entered The Isle of Dogs. There were a few runners by the side of the road stretching their calf muscles, I decided to try and do the same. The stretch seemed to do some good but not for long, soon the pain came back, soon I stopped again, another stretch. I manages to make it to Mudchute where I stopped by a medic and had an emergency sports massage. Again this pit stop served to alleviate the pain slightly but as I passed Cross harbour my Piriformis decided to join the shut down party, producing a pain not unlike being injected with an inappropriately large, rusty, six inch nail inserted very slowly and under great pressure into my lower back. Just at that point I looked at my watch and three hours passed by. My race was over.

I was in a strange state of mind; on the one hand all was lost, there was no way I was going to finish the race in less that four hours and mentally I was shot. I had to think really hard and really fast, I had to very quickly set myself a new target. On the other hand there's something to be said for the sporting cliché, "dig deep". I started shouting at myself, motivating myself, 9 miles to go, I can run 9 miles, easy, that's less than the run home from work I was doing during my training all winter. Take each mile one at a time, beak each mile down into sections. I just had to finish, that would be my target, I wanted that finishers medal more than anything in the world, I visualised the medal hanging around my neck, holding the medal, crossing the finish line, that was my motivation

By the time I rounded Canery Warf I could only run for about two minutes before my leg stopped working, I don't mind admitting it but I wanted to do nothing more than stop. Just as I turned to head towards Billingsgate there was a Saint John's medical centre, There were a couple of runners who had already decided enough was enough, sitting there in the warm sunshine receiving a massage, a cold drink in hand. Perhaps it was my mind playing tricks on me but I'm sure they were listening to some relaxing music. It looked like heaven.

And that is pretty much how the rest of my race went on, the pain grew increasingly debilitating, making it only possible to run for shorter and shorter periods. I counted from one to a hundred, running for a hundred seconds, walking for a hundred seconds. I counted down the miles, shouting the number out loud, I just had to keep going, I tried walking faster, continuing to push myself as hard as I possibly could. I was constantly being passed by other runners, but there were others suffering like myself. i managed to strike up a few conversations as I went along.

If there was any advantage to be found in the pain I was forcing myself to go through, it was that I really got to appreciate the enormity of the crowd, the support was absolutely huge. Every now and again people would see me walking, "COME ON RICHARD", "KEEP GOING! NOT FAR TO GO NOW, YOU'RE DOING GREAT!" The spectators really did help me through it.

I passed under the 25 mile maker, along The Embankment, the Houses of Parliament in view, people screaming my name, verbally pushing me along. I was determined to run across the finish line. I hobbled onto bird cage walk, I saw a man collapsed by the side of the road, what a place to collapse I thought, virtually in sight of the finish.

I rounded onto The Mall and there it was, the end. I really was in a state of complete agony, I could barely walk let alone run but I forced one more jog out of me, I made it over the line and nearly fell over. I'd done it, ironically I very nearly walked straight past the woman handing out the medals.

I decided as soon as I crossed the finish line that I wouldn't even think about how the race had gone, I was just so pleased to have finished. As a spectator over the years I had seen runners in my position and now I know exactly what they were going through.

I was hours off my race target time finally crossing the line with a time of 5:02. This time though, I was more proud of my performance than when I got my personal best. It was, in a way, what marathon running is all about. It takes a lot of guts to run a marathon, anyone that runs this race will at some point want to stop. Part of running a marathon is dealing with the voices inside that want you to give up, I had to convince myself that giving up wasn't an option.

At the end of the race, just like the last time I ran the marathon, just like the last time I ran a half marathon or just like the last time I ran any other race, as soon as I crossed the finish line there was only one thought going through my mind...

"I can do better than that".

See you next year London.

Preparation: practice preparing to prepare.

With 10 days to go before the night before the race I've been practising my final moments before I leave the house that morning.

Now, I know I may be leaving myself open to accusations of obsessive compulsive disorder, but when I wake up the morning of a race the last thing I want to be thinking about is anything other than the race.

This last week I've been waking up at 7:30 am every day, the time I will be getting out of bed on April the 25th. I've been making my pre-race breakfast of bananas and porridge with loads of honey and eating it at

the exact time I'll be eating on

race morning. I've been making sure I stretch for at least 20 minutes, paying particular attention to those areas that have caused me problems, calf muscles and piriformis and ITB.

This is a very personal kind of build up, every runner is different. For me, race morning is one of the most exciting moments, it's easy to get carried away and forget something. When I ran the Sheffield half marathon back in 2005, I managed to leave my timing chip behind in Germany. So, over the years I've perfected my pre-race into a kind of ritual, here are some of the things I do in the weeks before a race like the London marathon before I even get out of the front door:

• Wake up at the time I will wake up on race morning.
• Eat my pre-race breakfast. Doing this also means that you not only don't have to worry about what you are going to eat, it also means that there will be no surprises for my digestive system on the day.
• Wear what I will wear on race day. This is probably one of the most important things I could so. I have only just discovered that the shorts I was planning on wearing cause dreadful and uncomfortable chafing. Consequently I will revert to the shorts I have worn for my two previous marathons.
• Have a warm shower and stretch. A warm shower is something I have only recently added to my training and race preparation, it relaxes the muscles after a long night in bed, a nice way to wake up and makes stretching more comfortable.
• Start running at 9:45 AM. That's the time the marathon will start so that's the time I leave the house for my last taper runs.
• Carbo load. Yep, my favourite part of any race preparation, eating. I start carbo loading three days before the race and actually lay off of the carbs a bit the evening before. I stop eating at 8:30 and go to bed at 9 o'clock.

The morning of the race is pure ritual. It's almost like going to church, there are certain things I have to do and I do them in the same order:

• The night before the race I make sure I have pinned my race number to my shirt and laid out my kit and everything I'll need before I leave the house. I fit my timing chip (so I don't leave it behind, doh!) and put everything I need before and after the race in my kit bag.
• Get an early night.
• A new pair of socks. I always start a race in a new pair of socks.
• Plasters on the nipples. Seriously, if this is your first marathon, make sure you have plasters on your nipples.
• Imodium. I take imodium before a race, just in case. The last thing I want is to have to go to the toilet at 19 miles.
• Drink a little but often. Basically hydration is one of the hardest things to get right, particularly pre-race. I keep a small glass of water beside my bed and as soon as I wake up I have a drink. I probably drink about 250ml before I leave the house, sipping a carbohydrate sports drink as I make my way to the start. This just seems to work for me.
• Vasaline or some other lubricant parts of your body you know will chafe.

These are some of the things I do. I usually have a good 20 minute stretch before I leave and then have a gentle warm up and stretch at the start. The last thing I do is have a moment of meditation, visualisation, when I mentally prepare for the points in the race I know I will have to work harder than on other parts of the course.

I'd imagine that there are some aspects to my own build up that many runners will find familiar but as I say, pre-race preparation is a very personal thing my only suggestion would be that you practice your race morning, practice your preparation.

Taper time

A tapier, not a taper!

The taper is the part of the training schedule most runners really look forward to. The basic idea of a taper is top allow your body to recover sufficiently in order to run the race. A punishing program consisting in most cases of many hundreds of miles of training has prepared the body for the race to the point of exhaustion, the three weeks before the race are a gradual slowing down, reducing the intensity of training by half each week up until race day.

My taper was complicated by having to completely stop for 10 days due to picking up an injury, but I had scheduled a 13 mile run for last Sunday and I felt happy enough with my recovery to give it a go. I ran most of the 13 miles at or very close to my original planned race pace of 8 minutes per mile, I really felt that I needed to test myself a little bit, sitting around doing nothing can be frustrating to say the least and I had to see if my Achilles would hold up. You might think that this was a risky thing to do but if I hadn't felt fit enough to run I wouldn't have done the 13 miles anyway. I chose to include the first seven miles of the London Marathon route into my run, again familiarising myself with the slowest part of the course. I eventually finished my run in a pretty decent time of 1 hour 47 minutes, something that did my confidence no end of good. Apart from feeling a little stiffer than usual, I ran the whole route quite comfortably finding my rhythm and quietly starting to form my final strategy for race day.

That run was completed two weeks before race day, this coming Sunday my long run will consist of a 6 mile run, that's compared to my longest run of 22 miles. My total mileage for this week will be just under 20 miles, my mileage for the whole of next week will be 10 miles. If you think that during the height of my training I was doing a 10 mile run on my way home for work, you'll get an idea of just how easy the next 10 days will be by comparison.

As with most things to do with running there is something of an art to tapering before a big race but in all programs the goal is to feel fresh and ready for the race. There a few things you should do and things you shouldn't do, these are commonly referred to TAPER TRAPS. Generally you're aiming to relax, take a step back from pressurising yourself to hit those mileage or pace targets.

One thing I have already become aware of is a desperate need for high carbohydrate foods, I'm craving pasta, potatoes and rice. Having spent so much time working on getting my weight down I don't really want to put the pounds back on again, not this early anyway. The next thing to look out for, especially next week, will be something called recovery rebound, when I'll feel a desperate need to go out and run. This is basically exactly what I want, but I will have resist the temptation to go out and run 15 miles at 7 minutes a mile!

Warm weather training

That's right, your eyes do not deceive you, WARM weather training. It doesn't seem that long ago I was complaining about the sub-zero temperatures, in fact, at one point in January the weather was so bad I couldn't run for a week. Sheet ice inches thick covered just about every pavement in South East London.

We Brits are famed for our obsession with the weather but I don't think anyone could argue that the last four months have not been easy for us lot training for the London marathon. I've ran through sub-zero snow covered streets, pouring rain so bad that it left standing water a foot deep in some places along the River Thames, and today, something completely different... hot sunshine and high humidity.

Not that I'm complaining, one of my worries about the up coming marathon has always been that the later than usual start (a week later than last years) left the event vulnerable to warm or even hot weather.

This morning I woke up and did my usual preparation of porridge, bananas, stretching and circuits. While watching the weather forecast I realised that today was going to be a warm one, "hmmmmm", thinks I, "..here's an opportunity to get some warm weather running in".

Now, I've ran a warm marathon before and I can tell you, I did not enjoy it, not one bit; and that was after months of training through an unspeakably hot German summer in Cologne. Running in warm weather takes some getting used to and after months of training though the coldest winter to hit Europe for 70 years, any opportunity to run in the sun has to be taken.

I actually waited until about one o'clock, the sun was shining in a clear blue sky, the heat had built up to 19 Celsius in the shade, making the in the sun temperature well into the mid-twenties. After about 3 miles of running I really started to flag, I started getting worried that if these conditions were to be repeated on the 25th, I wouldn't make it. After four miles I stopped and had a stretch, I started to relax, drinking regularly, pacing myself nicely. I realised that I had gone off too fast, running close to 7:50/ mile pace, I eased off to around 8:10/mile pace and all of a sudden I really started to enjoy it.

I ran around Peckham Rye Common three times (about 5 miles), enjoying the sun beating down on me, the sight of people soaking up the warm spring sunshine, dog walkers, builders and other runners all out there, I just relaxed and got on with it.

I'm planning a 13 mile run on Sunday, apparently it's going to cool off a bit, it will be sunny but not nearly as hot as it was today, shame really, I would really enjoy another thirteen miles just like today.

London Marathon: 12 interesting facts

When it comes to Marathon running you can't read anything in any running related literature without coming across a statistic, usually in the first paragraph. So, in the tradition of Marathon writing, I thought I would include as many statistics as I can find here for your reference.

1. Over the course of a marathon the average runner will lose 2.5 litres of water.

2. Over 26.2 miles runners will take 30 000 steps, over three times their body weight is transferred though their heel every time is hits the ground.

3. The current course record holder for the London marathon is Sammy Wanjiru with a time of 2 hours, five minutes and ten seconds. The current male World record holder is Haile Gabresalassie with a time of 2:03:59 set in Berlin, 2008.

4. The slowest marathon finisher was Major Phil Packer who completed the course with a time of 13 days, a remarkable time considering Packer lost his legs in Afghanistan only starting to use crutches a month before the race.

5. The fastest marathon completed dressed as a vegetable was recorded in 2009 by Robert Protheno who crossed the finish line dressed as a large carrot in 3:34:55.

6. Over it's history, enough water has been handed out to runners to fill 150 Olympic sized swimming pools!

7. The last British winner of the London marathon was Paula Radcliffe who broke the World record with a time of 2:15:25. However, the last British man to win was Eamonn Martin way back in 1993 who was not actually a professional athlete at the time.

8. 1 in every 67 414 London marathon runners dies. This is comparable with many daily activities.

9. The course distance of 26 miles 385 yards is not in fact, the distance from Marathon to Athens in Greece but was the distance ran at the London Olympics in 1908 when Italian, Dorando, famously barely crossed the line but was subsequently disqualified after receiving assistance from the clerk of the course. The Gold medal was awarded to the second placed American, Johnny Hayes. Promoters and bookies set up a subsequent series of rematches but insisted the race be run over the exact distance ran in London. The International Olympic committee sanction the distance the following year and ever since then the World knows the Marathon as the distance set in London, not Greece.

10. The first Womens Marathon race did not exist as an Olympic event until 1984 in Los Angeles. Back in 1981 the winner of the men's race received 1375 pounds while the winner of the women's race received a wrist watch. Fortunately, there is a bit more equality these days with both the male and the female winners receiving the same prize money of 36000 pounds.

11. The human body can only store approximately 2000 calories in the form of glycogen which is converted from carbohydrates and stored in the liver and muscles. Most runners run out of glycogen between the 18 and 20 mile mark. This is commonly referred to as "hitting the wall".

12. The most common profession amongst marathon runners is teaching.

Good news from the physio

After completely resting my Achilles for a week I visited my physiotherapist at the Crystal Palace Sports Injury Clinic at the athletics stadium. I have to say that I was a little bit worried about what they were going to say but my injury had healed well over the 7 days and I felt a lot more cheerful about the up coming marathon.

The physio listened to what I did in training before first looking at my shoes. He took one look at my feet and told me that my shoes weren't giving me enough support. This suprised me as I had always thought I was was a mild over-pronator but it seems that I turn more as I ran than I've always thought. This was one possible contributor to my injury.

The next thing the physio did was have a really good feel of my calf muscles. His assessment was immediate, they were incredibly tight but considering the amount of running I have been doing this was not surprising. He recommended some deep (and quite uncomfortable) tissue massage and a series of stretches designed to target the range of different muscles in the lower leg.

The tightness of the muscles combined with inadequate stretching before and after exercise and wearing running shoes that don't provide enough support all contributed to my Achilles tendinitis. the fact that I was increasing my mileage to around 20 miles for my LSDR simply provided the final straw.

So, what about the recovery? Well the massage and the stretching exercises are pretty straight forward. As there are only three weeks until the race, there isn't enough time to do another long run which is in fact a blessing in disguise as long runs are completely out of the question. I've been told to keep my running light, do some low impact exercises (i.e, head to the gym and get on the cross trainer or get in the pool), do a lot of stretching and finally, acupuncture.

Acupuncture is something new to me. My physio suggested it as a way of relaxing specifically tight areas as well as encouraging the healing process. I've never had it before but actually found it quite a pleasant experience. A few minutes after the needles were inserted I experienced a warming sensation located along my Achilles and lower calf muscle. I was suprised as to how deep the needles went, a good couple of inches in some places.

More generally the injury has given me cause for reflection. I thought that the whole training program was going particularly well, in fact, even after the long run that led to the injury, I still felt happy with how I was doing. But even with this, my third marathon, eight half marathons under my belt with all the thousands of miles of associated training , I'm mildly suprised that I could have got everything so wrong. Perhaps I have been slightly over confident with this marathon, building up the mileage too far too quickly.

It just goes to show, that even with the experience , I can still make mistakes with my training, pushing myself too hard and eventually breaking down.